


A Very Civil War

by Silvestria



Category: Downton Abbey
Genre: F/M, Gen, late night drinking
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-11-05
Updated: 2013-11-05
Packaged: 2017-12-31 14:33:25
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,461
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1032802
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Silvestria/pseuds/Silvestria
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Late one night, Mary Crawley drinks whiskey with Charles Blake. He's talking about politics, she's hardly listening... What could possibly happen next? Spoilers for 4x06.</p>
            </blockquote>





	A Very Civil War

Everyone else had gone to bed. Even the fire had died down in the grate. Out of all of them, only Mary remained. Tom had disappeared to check in on Sybbie hours ago and conveniently not returned. Evelyn had retired with a headache a little later and the rest hadn't even pretended to want to be there.

Charles Blake, glass of whiskey in hand, was  _still_ talking. Mary, perched on the sofa with her hands folded in her lap just as she had been for the past three hours or so since dinner had ended, was trying to maintain an expression of neutral interest on her face and keep her eyes open.

"… as suggested by a recent government report by Lord Trilling into the likely chance of a respite from commons lobbying."

Blindly, Mary reached for her own glass on the table next to her. Far too little left. She drained the tumbler and forced a smile onto her face. Without breaking his flow, Blake picked up the whiskey decanter, uncorked it, Mary held out her glass and he filled it up again, and set the decanter back down. It was hard to tell now exactly how many times this ritual had been repeated this evening.

"… The problem lies with the response of the tax payer to subsidising the maintainance of great estates and…"

Mary felt a weariness come over her as she raised her tumbler to her lips again. A pressure was growing in her head and her eyes were smarting from tiredness. Her back ached from sitting up for so long. Blake was shimmering in front of her, a solid lump of tedious eloquence. She realised that quite without meaning to, she had been staring fixedly at his right shoulder for the past five minutes at least. She blinked and shifted. Her head swam and the room dipped round her. She blinked again.

"Do you really believe all this - this propaganda you're lecturing me on?" she cut him off in full flow, enunciating very carefully.

He stopped and took a step towards her, forcing her to tilt her head further back to meet his eyes.

"Yes, I do." He paused to take a gulp of whiskey. "Don't you?"

His eyes were almost black. She could not read anything in them. The black of deepest villainly. The thought was strangely amusing rather than threatening and she sighed slightly and gave in to her tiredness: she turned on the sofa and leaned back, putting her feet up.

"I'm afraid I haven't been listening for rather a long time now." She took a warming sip of whiskey and eyed him warily over the rim of her glass.

Blake chuckled awkwardly and presently sat down in an armchair at her feet. Those inscrutable black eyes glanced down at her shoes resting on the cushions and then back up to her face.

"I can't pretend to be surprised, Lady Mary. You can trample over whatever you like and believe you will never be held accountable."

"Have I missed the people's revolution?" she retorted with a supercilious smile, her eyelids drooping. "Is this civil war?" She drained her glass and held it out for another refill.

He obliged, one corner of his full lips twitching up. "A  _very_ civil war."

"I'm amazed you are letting me drink this much," she observed, ignoring him and focusing her gaze on the amber liquid and the press of her fingers through the misted glass. "It's very improper."

Dark eyebrows raised across from her as he leaned back in his chair, looking very much at home and drank slowly. "I'm amazed you think I have the power to stop you."

Still looking down, she grinned suddenly, her features relaxing into good humour. "You don't, of course, but I think you should have tried all the same."

"Sounds like a waste of time, if you ask me."

"Everything you are doing here is a waste of time!"

Mary laughed merrily to herself a few moments more until she became aware that her companion had not replied and when she looked up she saw him simply observing her, his expression inscrutable in the gloom. Slowly, her laughter stopped and her expression reverted to its previous questioning suspicion as she met his eyes. The pressure in her head was growing and she prickled with drugged heat, despite the coolness of the atmosphere now that there was no fire. The longer he did not reply and the more he scrutinised her, the more uncomfortable she became until she could not bear the silence.

"I'm going to bed. There is nothing more to say."

She placed her tumbler on the side table and made a good effort to stand up. Swinging her legs off the sofa was harder to manage than it should have been and as she stood up, the room tipped and jerked and almost flipped over. She would have fallen if it had not been for a pair of strong arms grasping her own and steadying her.

"Do you think that improving people's lives is a waste of time, Lady Mary?"

Blake's face swam into focus before her, far closer than it had been and on a level with hers. She was aware of the press of his fingers into her upper arm and elbow as points of warmth. The question seemed very complicated.

"I would hardly say that statistics about food production count as improving lives," she replied carefully.

"What about the farmers who produce the food, the merchants who distribute it whose livelihoods depend on a constant supply and demand, and the people all over the country who need it for survival? Is that worth nothing to you?"

Mary swallowed and her eyes darted away from him. "I wonder that you will still be talking, Mr Blake; nobody marks you," she murmured, the lines coming into her mind as in a dream, her tone a faint and tired copy of her usual distain. She shook him off her and took a shaky step past him, her shoulder brushing his chest.

He reached out and caught her wrist in a loose grasp as she passed, holding her close to him. "Not just farmers, doubting Beatrice." His voice was low and impossibly steady for how much whiskey he had drunk. She could almost taste the alcohol on his breath, he was so close to her. "I am an egalitarian. This means I want to improve things for everyone. For the vicar, for the doctor, for the farmer, for the footman, for the nanny and, yes, for myself and for you too."

At that she turned her head and found his eyes mere inches away from hers. Her breath hitched and, against her will, her eyes dipped briefly. "How - Utopian."

"You think me unrealistic in my expectations."

"Hopelessly so."

He shrugged slightly. "It is only when we strive for what is completely out of our reach that we have any chance of succeeding. You may not believe me, Mary, but the aim of my visit is not to attack you and your family."

She stared at him and her vision narrowed to include only his face. It seemed to loom even closer and she could not be sure whether that was a trick her eyes were playing on her or if she or he really had swayed. She shook off the hand that rested on her arm and took a step away. She tossed her head at the same time to try to clear the fog that had infected her senses.

"You're right, I don't believe you. And I think you have had quite enough of Papa's whiskey. For a man who thinks he has no right to live here let alone drink expensive alcohol, you're making very free with his hospitality!"

"Lady Mary, I have never said that I thought that."

She had somehow managed to cross the bucking sea of the drawing room but she turned back.

"No, you're very good at not saying what you really mean, aren't you? But you have implied it."

He spread his arms out in a plea. "Come, I am here as an agent of the government. You can hardly expect me to be completely open to you of all people."

Mary pursed her lips. Her head was really throbbing now and a wave of exhaustion washed over her. She wanted nothing more than the blissful relief of a soft bed now. For some reason, as her body remembered and craved the feel of cool sheets and a soft pillow, the memory of Blake's hands on her arms and the heat of his body inches away from hers also passed through her.

She took a breath. "Goodnight, Mr. Blake."

She did not look back.


End file.
